A REVIEW OF “MUNTU: AN OUTLINE OF THE NEW AFRICAN CULTURE†BY JANHEINZ JAHN

Abstract

In his work: Muntu: An outline of the new African culture, Jahn observes that “Africa is adapting herself, giving up her traditions and adopting foreign ideas, methods of work, forms of government and principles of economic organization. The time of transition, whether short or long, is thought to be a time of crisis which will confront all Africans with the decision either to accept modern civilization and survive, or to perish with their own traditions†(p. 11). Jahn had cited the opinions of scholars like Jasper who argued that primitive cultures like Africa have no chance of adaptation in the face of technological civilization, but will sooner or later become extinct or become raw materials to be processed by technological civilization. If higher cultures like Mexico and Peru failed to survive this encounter, how much more African culture? Similarly, Malinowski, who had seen culture as something constantly changing, argued that “... all new objects, facts and forms of life in Africa are the results of European pressure and African resistance. Even African nationalism, which evokes and revives an African culture, is, Skokian†(p. 14). In the midst of all these changes, Jahn presents a systematic exposition of the new African culture that has emerged: what he called a neo-African culture; it is a culture born out of the encounter between European culture and African traditional culture.